Last month, reports came out of Spain that Barcelona had paid millions of euros to the referee’s association until 2018, apparently to carry out an audit of the referees to make sure they weren’t biased. It was a 100-line report, but the media being the media, they ran with one line: Barcelona paid millions to the referee’s association. However, Barca’s role in this case is far from squeaky clean either. During this saga, fake news has run rampant, and today I’m going to go over everything you need to know and filter through the fake news. I will tell you the series of events so far, and what can and can’t happen from here.
The news was first broke by Spanish news company based in Madrid, La Cadena SER, who said that Barca had paid 7 million Euros to Jose Manuel Enriquez Negreira, a former referee. The payments had stopped in 2018, after which if the payments didn’t continue he threatened to “reveal certain irregularities about Barca”. Nothing happened, however.
La Cadena SER, who originally broke the news, said that Barcelona paid this money to Negreira for referee decisions in their favour, a claim which has set the tone for the entire case. Barcelona immediately denied these claims and Joan Laporta released a statement saying “Barca has never bought referees nor had the intention to.”. They said they hired a service “for technical reports on referees, which is common.”.
Other reports have said that Barcelona paid the money to a company called DASNIL 95 SL, a company founded by Negreira as a side job after retiring from refereeing in the 90s. In return, they received an envelope with a written report and DVD about the referee they’re having for their next match; their on-pitch behaviour, card tendencies, etc.
These claims haven’t picked up a whole load of steam, however, even though this is the closest we have to full details of the case.
Josep Maria Bartomeu, Barca president at the time of these payments, denied the claims immediately after the reports were released. It has been revealed that Barcelona is carrying out an investigation of their own into this case and will tell their entire side of the story after the investigation is complete. Joan Laporta also said, “it isn’t a coincidence that this story is coming out when Barcelona are in their best moment of the season.”.
After the report was released, all La Liga clubs barring Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Valencia released a statement expressing the seriousness of the case as well as their concern. Real Madrid also released a statement on Friday about the case, and it now looks like they might cut off all ties with Barcelona, days before two El Clasicos could decide the fate of both La Liga and the Copa del Rey. Valencia also protested the charges in the away end of the Camp Nou in their meeting last week, which Barca won 1-0. Athletic Bilbao also protested prior to their clash with Barcelona on the weekend, chanting “Corruption in the federation”. Barca proceeded to win 1-0, with VAR allowing an originally disallowed Barca goal and disallowing an originally allowed Bilbao goal.
Now on to the official stuff. The prosecutor’s office made an official complaint on March 10th with people such as Bartomeu, Sandro Rosell, and Oscar Grau, who were all high ranking figures at Barca when the payments were happening.
Following this, Barcelona released a statement saying that “the opinion of the prosecutor who’s filing this complaint is a hypothesis. Barcelona never bought referees nor tried to influence their decisions.”.
Onto what happens from now. Despite the case being around for a month, evidence for either side is limited, and we don’t even have a date for a court hearing yet.
Now, to a fan looking at this case, you can draw similarities to the 2006 Calciopoli case which saw Juventus relegated to Serie B. However, a sporting punishment to Barcelona is ruled out, by La Liga at least. At the worst, La Liga would sanction Barca economically. A sporting punishment isn’t ruled out if UEFA or FIFA get involved though, but all in all a sporting punishment is unlikely.
From the perspective of someone who’s watched Barcelona for the last 7 years, I don’t believe that we have some sort of hold over referees. Another former referee chief said that 90% of referees are Madrid fans, and even if the envelope report is true, in which the referees would have no say on the matter, it certainly didn’t work. I have for you two instances which cost Barcelona La Liga titles due to referee mistakes. Both were in the time the alleged payments happened.
2014, Barcelona vs Atlético Madrid. It’s 1-1 and Barca need one goal to win La Liga. Messi scores, but it’s ruled out for offside. Looking at the goal on the replay, Messi was standing in an offside position, but the ball didn’t actually touch a Barcelona player. If you’re still counting the original pass as it going to Messi, he was in an onside position, so the goal should have stood.
In 2017, Barca played Real Betis midway through the season, and it seemed like a late Barca winner had been scored. It was cleared by Aissa Mandi and the referee ruled that it had not crossed the line, when it clearly had. The mistake cost Barca 2 points. They lost the league by 3 to Real Madrid while having better goal difference and head-to-head record than Real Madrid. They went on to lose games to Malaga and Deportivo de la Coruna before losing the league. Perhaps if the goal stood, they would have the mental fortitude to get a point out of either of those games and win the league.
When he heard the story, Bob put it best. “If we’re bribing refs, we’re bribing the wrong refs.”. That being said, without a court hearing, it is hard to fully support either side of the story. I am cautiously supporting Barca in this case, and if the case is dismissed, perhaps they could even sue La Cadena SER for defamation. However, whatever happens, the court of public opinion’s mind is made up. If they continue to say that Barca bribe refs even if they win the case, you will be able to see that it isn’t a very good court.
I have said all I can about the Negreira case. We will see how the case continues to move forward, but for now, I’m Jim James, until next time.